


Addictions Suck

by Doteruna



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backgroung Horace/Evanlyn, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, F/M, Fighting, Hurt/Comfort, It's really only Will/Halt if you squint really hard, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recovery, Rescue, Violence, Will's Addiction, Wormweed Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 09:44:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10941915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doteruna/pseuds/Doteruna
Summary: Halt and Horace find Will and Evanlyn in Skandia a little different than in the books.





	Addictions Suck

Hallasholm was a darkened city during the night, with only a few lanterns casting orange light on the gaps between buildings meant to be roads. It was too late for anyone to still be awake, and too early for the morning-risers to begin preparing the city for the next day. Halt and Horace practically waltzed through the main road towards the giant building meant to be the mess hall, keeping to the shadows but not particularly worried about being caught. There had been some kind of celebration in the town during the day, as the two Araluens had observed from their small camp several hills away, with games and sports being played and a large feast to wrap it up. The alcohol had flowed easily and most men had been bustled home by their wives, and now, hours later, the city lay as silent as the dead.

That is, until the pair crept up behind the mess hall. This is where the yard was located, and the slaves who worked there were crammed in the back in a poorly-maintained barn. The yard was empty, but the flickering light of a small fire shown through the holes in the barn doors and the soft murmurs of voices could be heard, punctuated by louder shouts every few minutes. Halt motioned for Horace to move to the other side of the building, and the younger man nodded before disappearing into the darkness. Halt slipped next to the door and nudged it open with his foot a few inches, longbow in his hands and an arrow already nocked. He peered through the gap.

The barn was separated by a thin partition into two sections, a larger area for most of the slaves to sleep and a smaller area in the front for the head slaves to do as they wish. Through the gap in the doors, Halt was able to see the group of four slaves clustered around another on the ground, laid out next to the fire. They were laughing and jeering quietly, and at first Halt didn’t know what for. He moved into the doorway and caught a glimpse of a pale, thin thigh, exposed enough that Halt knew the slave wasn’t wearing pants. The head slave that was positioned in between those spread thighs shifted, and Halt was horrified to see the face of his apprentice, eyes unfocused and jaw slack, staring at the ceiling while his body was thrust into by the larger, older slave. Without a further thought, Halt stepped fully into the barn, raised his bow, and let his arrow fly. 

The thick black shaft thudded into the head slave with dull twang of the bowstring, and the other slaves froze. Then another arrow came shooting from the doorway and a bloody arrowhead was suddenly protruding from the slave’s eye socket, spraying a fine mist across the others. They scrambled back with yelps of fear, but one was cut off with a gurgle as Horace’s sword made an appearance in his throat. The last two were dispatched with an arrow to the chest and Halt’s throwing knife embedded into one’s chest, followed swiftly by Horace’s weapon again. With all four men dead, Halt lunged forward towards his apprentice. 

“Will!” he cried, hauling the man he’d shot from between Will’s legs--out of Will, he realized with another sickening lurch to his stomach. “Will?” 

The boy was limp and completely unresponsive as Halt dropped to his knees and placed his hands on his face, cupping his cheeks. Will’s chocolate eyes were glazed and unfocused, sliding around the ceiling until they landed on Halt’s face above him. The grizzled Ranger was looking his body over, ignoring his pupil’s nudity in favor of checking for injuries that could have caused such a mental state. There was blood between Will’s thighs and the corners of his mouth were split and cracked, and when Halt gently tugged the boy’s mouth open, he saw flecks of brown herbs on his teeth and tongue.

“They’ve given him something,” he muttered. Horace was kneeling on Will’s other side, performing a similar body check. “Something to alter his mind. We need to get out of here, Horace, somebody will have heard this.”

Indeed, the two intruders could hear the rustling of the other slaves behind the curtained partition, and a few bold yard slaves had even poked their heads through to see what was going on. Seeing the blood, their eyes widened, but they shrank back without a sound, proving their dislike of the head slaves. Horace eyed them warily until they vanished, but Halt’s focus was on Will. 

“Will? Can you hear me? Can you speak?” he asked, tapping Will’s cheek lightly to see if it elicited any reaction. Will turned away from the touch for a moment but then looked back, staring at Halt with a distant and dead gaze. He made no move to stop Halt or help himself, as if he was a babe. “Shit. Horace, we’ll have to carry him--”

“Excuse me?”

Both Araluens’ heads snapped up, and the yard slave who had stepped through the partition bit his lip. He was young, around Will’s age, with a heavy accent and covered in filth, but his eyes were determined despite his shaking hands. 

“He won’t answer, and he can’t really do much right now,” the slave said. Halt was about to snap at him for stating the obvious but the slave continued. “They just gave him another dose of warmweed not twenty minutes ago. He won’t be able to do much of anything for another few hours, at best.”

“Warmweed?” Halt echoed. He vaguely recalled hearing the name around Redmont, mostly in the medicinal ward. “What does it do?”

“Uh, it makes you feel real warm,” the slave explained. “Like nothing else matters but the herbs. When it’s as cold as it is here at night, and you’ve had to go through what he did, the craving for the heat can be undeniable.” 

“Why are you telling us this?” Horace demanded. “You could be lying.”

“Yes,” the slave responded, taking a quick step back. “But I’m not. Your friend has been here for many months, and has done a lot for us weaker and younger slaves. He would take on work meant for others when they were too sick or tired to do it. He will not last much longer here. We owe him this.” 

Horace pursed his lips, thinking, before nodding his thanks. It certainly sounded like something Will would do, and this slave had no reason to lie to them. 

Meanwhile, Halt pulled his cloak off his shoulders and wrapped it around his apprentice’s alarmingly thin body, tucking it tight against the freezing cold and hefting the slight boy into his arms. 

“Horace, you lead the way,” he instructed. “You’ll be better at fending off anybody we come across, so I’ll carry Will. Go.” Horace nodded and gripped his sword, pushing the barn door open and leading Halt into the darkened roads beyond. Halt didn’t mention that he couldn’t bring himself to let another touch his apprentice--not now, not after all this time, after all Will had suffered through. 

“What about Evanlyn?” Horace asked as he peered around a corner, then rounding it. “We can’t leave her tonight, they’ll see the dead slaves in the morning and be on the lookout.”

Halt cursed to himself. Horace was right; if they left now, the Skandians would know someone was attacking the village and post security. 

Luckily, their solution stepped out of the darkness not ten seconds later.

“Will?”

A soft voice stopped them in their tracks as a young blonde girl slipped from a doorway a few buildings ahead of them, immediately running to them.

“Evanlyn!” Horace whispered, rushing forward to intercept her. “We need to get out of here. What are you doing?”

“I try to sneak out sometimes to bring food to Will,” the girl explained, digging into one of her tunic pockets to reveal a small slice of bread. “But nevermind that. Let’s go.”

They were about to move forward again when the door Evanlyn had exited creaked open. Caught in the middle of the street, the Araluens had no chance to hid before a burly Skandian emerged, staring at them in clear shock. Horace’s grip on his sword tightened.

“What in the devil is going on here?” Erak asked quietly. “Did everyone pick tonight to stage a rescue?”

“Excuse me?” Halt asked after a moment of dumbfounded silence. The Skandian chuckled. 

“I’ve been meaning to get the boy and girl out of here for quite some time now but have never had the chance. Then, I see the girl sneaking away from the kitchens, and now you two are here, making off with the lad. It’s all about timing.”

“Erak has been kind to me,” Evanlyn filled in helpfully. “He gives me extra food and tries to give Will easier tasks when he’s in the yard.”

“I don’t trust him,” Halt growled, but he could do nothing--his longbow was over his shoulder and his arms were full of his apprentice, and he was loathe to set him down for anything. Erak just grinned, his teeth eerily white in the moonlight.

“You don’t have to. You just have to get out of here.” And with that, he turned on his heel and entered the building, the door snicking shut behind him. 

“I believe him,” Evanlyn assured them. “I’ve spent months here, and he’s been the kindest one. I think he genuinely wants to help; he was very sad when he caught sight of Will in the yard one time.”

“Fine,” Halt snarled. “We need to get out of here.”

Again, Horace took the lead, one hand on his sword and the other gripping the girl’s fingers. Halt followed swiftly, saddened by the fact that his small stature could easily carry Will’s depleted weight. It didn’t take long for them to reach the outskirts of the village, where Abelard and Horace’s mount were waiting just inside the treeline of the forests that surrounded the area. The horses nickered softly and Abelard stepped forward to sniff at Will, tossing his head nervously. 

“I know, Abelard, I know,” Halt murmured to his horse. He balanced some of Will’s weight on his knee and used his free hand to make a motion, and Abelard sank gracefully to the ground, allowing Halt to slide Will onto the saddle and slip on behind him, so that the boy was cradled against his chest. Horace hefted Evanlyn onto his battlehorse and clambered up in front of her, helping her to settle her arms around his waist. 

With that, they were off. 

 

 

They spent nearly two weeks on the move, riding hard and fast to get as far away from Hallasholm as they could get. They couldn’t get across the border or ocean yet, not with Will’s condition slowly worsening. 

Will had yet so speak a word or perform any action without prompting. As the slave from the barn had said, Will was completely responsive for several hours after Halt had bundled him up. After that, he would go in whatever direction he was pushed, stumbling forward on coltish legs until someone stopped him and sat him down. He didn’t make eye contact, he didn’t move around, and he didn’t even relieve himself unless Horace or Halt guided him to the chamber pot of the small hut they’d found and occupied and pulled down his trousers for him. While the old Will would have been mortified, this new Will just blindly followed the simple orders he was given. 

They’d found an abandoned hunting hut in the middle of the dense forest and decided to wait until the worst of winter passed. Evanlyn fashioned a sling from some leather she found and brought in small game nearly every day, while Halt showed Horace how to set traps. Halt himself spent a lot of his time inside with Will, talking to him, giving him basic directions (“Sit. Stand up. Hold this.”) and watching keenly for any spark of recognition in those deep eyes. There was never any sign of life, never a clue that Will was still inside this body. 

The first few weeks after escaping were the hardest for the boy. Without any wormweed to use to wean the boy off, the withdrawals hit hard and often. Will shuddered, sweated, and cried, wordless cries spilling from his lips as he writhed on the bed, fingers clutching at anything he could grab and pulling at his own hair whenever Halt wasn’t close enough to latch onto. Once the worst of it wore off, Will would sit on the porch or by the fire, expressionless and motionless. It broke Halt’s heart to see the boy, once so fiery and determined, beaten like this, used like this. Halt remembered cleaning Will for the first time since the rescue.

They’d finally brought in enough snow and made a fire large enough to heat the water, creating lukewarm bathwater. Halt used a rag he’d found in the hut and, while Horace entertained Evanlyn outside, set about cleaning the months worth of grime, blood, and dirt from his apprentice’s body. Will had lain like a doll, limp except for when Halt manually positioned his limbs to clean him. When the Ranger had moved the cloth between his legs, they’d fallen open, as if on instinct. Halt had swallowed his disgust and carefully cleaned the blood and semen away, being as gentle as possible even though Will showed no signs of discomfort. Finally, when the boy had been as clean as a newborn babe, Halt had wrapped him in his freshly cleaned cloak and laid him on the layers of hides that made a bed in the corner. Will went willingly and that corner is where he spent a lot of time over the next several weeks, only moving when instructed to by another. Horace and Evanlyn were, of course, worried about their friend, but were so lost in each other that duties like cleaning Will, getting him to eat, and other small tasks fell to Halt.

It was five weeks after they made their home in the little cabin that things changed. Horace and Evanlyn were out checking the traps in the early morning sunlight, hoping to have caught some game overnight. Halt had gone outside to fetch snow to melt into fresh water and check the area around the cabin to make sure they didn’t have any unwanted visitors. He had just stepped inside, stomping the snow off his boots, when he noticed that Will had woken up and moved to the fireplace. There was no fire, so Halt didn’t know what drew the usually inactive boy to move without being told. 

“Morning, Will,” Halt greeted, as he always did. As usual, there was no answer, but Will had woken and moved on his own, so Halt decided it was an improvement nonetheless. 

“It’s been some days since Horace brought back anything useful from the snares. What are the odds he’s found something this time?”

No answer. Halt turns away to set the bucket of snow down swings his longbow down from where it had been hooked over one shoulder. As he moves to unstring it, a pressure on his arms stops in in his place.

Will had gotten up silently and made his way across the room to Halt, putting one hand on the Ranger’s arm and the other on the limb of the massive longbow. He stared at it for several long moments, eyes dull, before there was a sudden spark in them. His eyes widened, and he came alive in an instant, jumping back and crying out. His calves knocked against a small stool in the room and Halt leapt forward to catch him, losing his own balance in the process. They ended up sprawled on the floor, Will on his back with Halt hovering over him, fingers tangled in the tunic the younger man wore. 

“Halt?” Will asked, his voice hoarse from disuse. He coughed. “Halt?”

For a second, the Ranger could do nothing but stare. His face was inches from his apprentice’s, yet he couldn’t seem to get close enough. 

“You’re back,” was all the grizzled man could say. Will gave a weak smile.

“Where did I go?”

Barking out a laugh, Halt leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Will’s, shutting his eyes against the tears that threatened to spill. Couldn’t have those ruining his reputation, not when Will just woke up.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the last part a few weeks after writing the first part so it's not a smooth transition, but I can't bring myself to care~


End file.
